WHERE IT ALL BEGAN...

I suppose you`ve guessed by now that my musical tastes are wide and varied and I`ve often wondered where it all began.   It`s over 70 years now since my father introduced me to `proper` music and I suspect that it was music like this which helped him come to terms with and find solace and simple joy after the five long years he had spent in Stalag V111B having been captured at Dunkirk in 1940.  

This was the first piece of his `proper` music that I remember hearing on the old steam radio and it has lived with me for all these years and will continue to do so, for all kinds of reasons.  There are, of course, countless versions of this piece and I have trawled through a number of them in order to find the one which I think truly does justice to it in terms of sensitivity, tone and tempo. 

I finally chose this performance from the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra under the direction of a stern looking but totally absorbed Lim Kek-tjiang  Here`s the uplifting Intermezzo from Pietro Mascagni`s homage to rustic chivalry, Cavalleria Rusticana...........just close your eyes and listen.